Ken Atkinson – A Texas Hero

Ken Atkinson was a god damned hero. Seriously. Back in the 1950’s, Texas wasn’t exactly known as a hot bed for hot rodding. For whatever reason, the cars coming out of the greatest state never got as much play in the magazines as cars from the west or even east coast. The lone exception to that might be the cars built by Ken Atkinson. In fact, you might remember a feature I did on his ’52 Ford last year that was featured in R&C in ’57.

In that same January issue, R&C also featured Ken’s ’31 Ford. It was a car built properly for the street driving, but one that was really built to race. The little roadster was powered by a 391-inch Cad motor with four Stromberg 97’s, a Vertex Mag, Howard cam, and all sorts of other speed goodies. In fact, Ken took home the class D Gas Roadster record at the Bonneville Nationals in 1956 after running 153mph.

This land speed record only built on the successes Ken had already enjoyed on Texas dragstrips. Prior, Ken had campaigned a number of drag cars from his Corpus Christi home base and even crewed on the Mackey & Veselka AA/G race team. Like I said… Dude was a hero.

But you know what? Everything I’ve ever learned about Ken was through an old magazine. I’ve never met anyone that knew him or that could tell me more. And so here I am… Can anyone tell us the story of Ken Atkinson?